My employer changed 401(k) plan administrators with the new year. At EOY, I had $152k in the old plan in a blended stock/bond fund. My employer explained to us it would be the end of January before we could get into our new accounts with Voya. OK, fine.
During early January, the market soared. The S&P went from 3229 on Jan 2 to 3320 on Jan 21. I could only speculate how my 401k funds were doing. I wondered how much my comparable blended fund would go up if the stock market rose 2.8%?
As it turns out, Voya had kept my 401k funds in cash until Jan 21, which happened to be the peak for the month. On that day, they dumped 100% of my funds into a 100% stock fund. Today, the S&P is down 2.9%, back where we started the month at around 3225.
So I lost about $4400 without doing anything simply because my plan administrator delayed investment.
There is a market timing lesson here and a lump sum investing lesson here. But I'm mostly bitching because I think Bob the world's worst market timer is running my 401(k).